Saving grace

With their new alarm clock

If I remember correctly, I have posted several times about how our two oldest tend to have an early internal alarm clock. On the weekends this is the worst quality to have but during the week it makes it easy to get up and ready for preschool or MOPS. Anyway Carter took it to a new extreme on some days getting up at a quarter till six! He would get up to go to the bathroom and bring his brother with him. Even though the sun wasn't up, they were ready to start their day. We were not. Despite putting them back to bed, they would talk and play loudly in their room which left a grumpy mom and dad. So Chad looking to getting a child's alarm clock. After some research he found this one "teach me time alarm clock". It has been our saving grace. It worked better than we thought! What you do is set the clock for the time you want them to get up. When it reaches that time the clock glows green. So we told the kids that if they wake up and the clock is not green then they can't get up. It didn't even take one night. Carter loves it and loves having the control to get up when it turns green. Now if he gets up to go the bathroom you hear him say to Camden, "we have to go back to our room the light is not green yet". They get back into bed and stay pretty quiet. We have a theory that they just sit and stare at it until it turns green. The second it turns green you hear Carter say "Camden, it's green! we can get up!" Then they come into our room and announce that it is green. It is pretty cute. It really has worked well for us. Worth the money!

How do you pass the time on cold winter days?

have fun in the jumper

play in a box house

take a warm nap

be creative with boxesbe cute for the camera

have some tummy time

pass out while playing

wrestle with your brother

help wash the kitchen table

take another nap

play dress up

be a super herolet your animals try out the bouncy seat

wear shoes that are too big

have friends over for lunch

have a play date (and pretend to be a girl)

play on the floor

push your baby brother in the laundry basket

That is what we do at the Scribner house to pass our time. (There were *a lot* of pajama days in there)

Movie Night

A few weeks ago we had a movie night with our neighbors Emma and Jackson. The whole family came over and we watched Toy Story 3 and had snacks. The kids were super excited and did pretty well. They did get up to play about half way through the movie though. The kids are used to playing so much that they wanted to play instead of watching the movie. But Carter talked non-stop about it the next day and how he wants to do that again sometime soon. It was fun, especially all the kids in their cute jammies!

The back view of them watching the movie

watching and enjoying a snack

After the movie

Crafts/"Activities"

coloring

camden's picture

baby Callan observing during play-doh time

playing play-doh

making a snake

they BEGGED me to finger paint...

it started off well

then camden went to itch his face...

and it was all over from there...

independent reading

Carter has been crazy about doing "activities" lately. This is what they call them at preschool and he asks me numerous times a day to do them. It ranges from coloring, play-doh, painting, to cutting things up or independent reading. Most of these things require supervision and set up on my part but since the kids love doing them I try and let them as often as my patience will allow. Here are some of the things we have been up too.

Camden's mini birthday

Camden got to go with dad to pick out his birthday doughnut

playing nicely

Cam's birthday cake

cookie grandma karen made

eating cake

I forgot to post pictures of Camden's 2nd birthday. So here they are! We will have the big celebration in June.

Camden is 2!

Another big thing happened at our house last Saturday and that is that Camden turned 2! We are going to have a party for him in June but we did do a mini celebration. I made a cake and grandma Karen brought over a big cookie (my favorite). We also ordered pizza for dinner and just had a fun relaxing day. I am amazed that he is two. He still seems like my baby. I don't know where the time went. I also had his doctor appointment with Callans and he was 26lbs which is the 24th percentile so he is moving up. (he was in the 9th) he is moving down in height and was 331/2 inches which is the 25th percentile. His head was 19inches which puts him in the 38th percentile. He did not have to have any shots which made him very happy and everything turned out well for him too. He seems to be on track and doing well. Some of his favorite things at two are: Foods- he is picky and I can't think of a favorite, maybe cheese. He also likes anything sweet. He is eating his veggies these days which makes us very happy. Unfortunately he also has a very sensitive gag reflex and this causes him to throw up if he eats something that he doesn't like, or if it happens to be a stringy food. Thank goodness it doesn't happen that often but often enough that we don't like it. Toys- he loves toy story characters (mainly because Carter loves them) he also loves little people, curious george, and naming sesame street characters (even though we have never watched it). Books- he LOVES curious george, especially Curious George and the pizza, which we read at least two times a day. He loves reading and loves to point out all the things he knows on the page. Quirks- he has to have his shoes and socks on, or bare feet. He insists on wearing a hat in the winter. It bothers him when things fall out of what he is eating. Such as when the meat falls out of the taco or when the meat and cheese come out of his sandwich. He gets frustrated when eating and the food doesn't stay on his fork. He *loves* his blanket(s). He likes to have several. He will say before nap and bedtime "puppy blankie" over and over until he has the desired amount of puppies and blankies in the bed. He is still taking a 2-3 hour nap in the afternoon and goes to bed at 7-7:30 and gets up around 6. He will still fall asleep in the car if the car ride is longer than 10 minutes (yes, he is tired and needs more sleep). He loves being a part of what the big kids are doing and will do anything that Carter tells him.
Happy Birthday my sweet Camden Parker!

4 months

this is him sucking his thumb

Mr. Callan Reed turned 4 months last Thursday. I took him to his appointment the other day and he was 16lbs 6ounces which put him in the 75th percentile. So he is slimming down a bit. He was 26.5 inches long and that put him in the 91st percentile for height. His head was 16.5 inches which is the 36th percentile. I can't believe how much he is growing. I put him in a 6-9 month outfit the other day and it fit him good. He had a great check up and the doctor is pleased with how he is doing. He is got a bunch of shots again (the same as last time that caused a high fever) so we stayed on top of the tylenol and that seemed to help. He did have a little fever but it was way better than the last time. The doctor thinks it is the DTaP that is causing the problem. Anyway in other Callan news he is rolling onto his side a lot now and we feel it won't be long until he rolls over. He is still drooling and has found a new love for his thumb or any of his fingers for that matter. He sucks on them at time and also chews on them. I really hope this does not mean teeth in the near future. He has also perfected his nursing, and can eat in about 5-7 minutes. He seems to empty me, so I hope that is a good thing and not a bad thing. SLEEP. What can I ever say about sleep. He is doing ok, but things change like nobody's business over her. Just when I think we are in a good spot he changes things up. But we did knock out the 10pm feed and now I pump then. He goes from 7pm till about 4-5am. Not too shabby. On really good days he will stretch that out till 6am. But on bad days he wakes up for no reason several times a night and I don't know why. He is not hungry. Sometimes he is just awake. This makes for a cranky mom. I just keep hoping he will adjust and stay sleeping well at night. We are still swaddling him but I think it is time to give that up and maybe his hands will help soothe him, or annoy him. He is however taking pretty good naps at least the afternoon nap is going well (knock on wood). He *usually* sleeps from 1 to 4 or somewhere about there. He does have weird days but I try not to think about those. He is a happy baby and still loves his jumpers and watching his brothers play. He gets more and more distracted when eating because he is excited about what is going on around him. He loves to be held and cuddle, and he is starting to love toys.

first update in 2011

reading with his tag reader jr.

enjoying his new tag reader

ready to be done jumping

(these are low quality i was taking the pictures behind glass)
carter blowing bubbles

in the teachers arms getting ready to go under

(carter on the left) waiting his turn

at the end of class they go down the slide you can see he is still a little timid

swimming to the side after the slide, happy as can be

so much love!

my three hams!

wow, i cannot believe that it is really 2011! it is so crazy. time is flying by like normal. we got back into our normal routine around here and it feels pretty nice. carter was happy to be in preschool and to have something to do besides play at our house. it has been nice outside a few days this last week and the kids got to go out and play a bit which was nice. in new news carter started swimming lessons out at the country swim school this week. after much discussion and a convincing parent night, we decided to put him in lessons two nights a week. the place was pretty impressive. they take swim lessons pretty serious and we were able to watch what they do with the kids on our parent orientation night. it was amazing what these teeny tiny kids can do. carter did really well the first two lessons. there were a few tears due to fear but once he was in the water he was fine and stated that he loved swim lessons. he even put his head under the first lesson. i think that all of the kids have made some major changes in the last few weeks. i don't know what came over carter but he is no longer my baby but my little mature man. he decided that he only wants to do things that *big* people do. he only wants to roll up his sleeves at meals if chad and i do. he doesn't want to take a toy to bed because we don't. we made the mistake of giving him a *baby* fork the other night and we never heard the end of it. he now wants to drink water at meals because we do and wants to eat anything we are. it is cute, annoying and a little sad at how big he is actually getting. along with this other great things have come about such as him wanting to find a binky for baby callan if he is crying or getting things for me that i ask for. he likes to be *in charge* and feels big when i give him some responsibility. he also learned how to open the gate to the basement and callan's room which he thought was a huge accomplishment. i am sure some of it stems from us telling him things like "callan can't have that because he is too little or camden can't do something because he is too little" so now he thinks he is older and can do more things. he has also taken a special interest in his new tag reader. i told him it was just for him (because i don't want camden to break it) and to put it up when he is done. he has spend quite a bit of time with it. unfortunately he is used to the tag jr and isn't used to how to use this one for reading the words (but it is a little advanced for him) but he likes the independence it gives him. one funny thing he said this last week was while he was eating his lunch was "god, will you eat this sandwich for me?" and then laughs. i told him he needed to eat it to get some dessert. i guess he though god could help him.
camden found a new love for flash cards. we bought some to help carter with his letters and he is the one who asks for them on a daily basis if not more. he can name all the shapes correctly and is working on his colors. i have this on video and need to put it on here. it is pretty cute. his vocabulary just amazes me. he continues to talk loud all the time. he is used to saying the dinner prayer now and is starting to say it along with us but always ends it with a loud AMEN! he plays so nice on his own a lot of the time, especially when carter is not around. he has a new habit of getting upset when eating if he can't get the corn to stay on his fork, or if his sandwich falls apart. there are often meltdowns at each meal for things not going the way camden thinks they should. his type a ness is still if full swing. he refuses to have socks on without shoes or leave the house without his hat. he also loves it when you are done changing his diaper he will say "shake da silwees out". we always "shake the sillies out" after we are done changing him.
little callan. callan has thrown us for a loop lately but i think i figured him out so hopefully we are back on track. before christmas he was sleeping till 5-6am. then when the holidays hit and we were not home for the normal schedule he starting sleeping poorly. we also stopped swaddling him because he was always getting out. but after many bad nights i thought maybe the swaddling was the problem. it may just be a fluke but after i gave him my famous nazi swaddle wrap he slept like a baby. he slept until 6:15 which is not too shabby. I just hope that is the answer and he continues to sleep well. in other callan news he has become a professional breast feeder and on a good feed he can eat in 10 minutes. he *loves* his jumper, but more importantly he loves being upright. he spends lots of happy moments jumping and watching his brothers play. he also started truly and purposefully laughing. it is adorable. blowing raspberries on his belly or carter is sure to bring out the belly laughs. he is also able to roll onto his sides but just can't get all the over yet. he still drools like crazy, but is a very happy baby.